Response to Literature: A Fable

Chris Patterson

Mr. McKay English 11

6/9/08

Response to Literature

A Fable by Mark Twain

A Fable is a fantasy short story by Mark Twain. This story is about how a man paints a masterpiece that’s to be looked at in a mirror. When the artist’s cat goes and tells his animal friends in the forest, the animals want to see the masterpiece as well. The cat brings the animals to the house one by one and has them look at the reflection of the painting in the mirror. However, whenever an animal goes to look at the painting, they unintentionally stand between the mirror and the painting, causing them to only see reflections of themselves. The theme of this story is although you may not be able to see something, you know it’s there.

The characters reveal the theme in obvious ways. The first animal to go to the artist’s house is a donkey. When he returns, he says to the other animals "The cat lied. There was nothing in that hole (they think the mirror is a hole in the wall) but an ass. There wasn't a sign of a flat thing visible. It was a handsome ass, and friendly, but just an ass, and nothing more." (I’m pretty sure that ass just means donkey, and what it sounds like wasn’t intentional…but it’s still pretty funny!) The next character to go was Baloo the Bear. He said that the cat and the donkey lied, and there was nothing but a bear in the mirror. All the other animals went one after the other, and (without realizing it) all they ever saw was themselves reflected in the mirror.

The theme of this story can be applied to everyone on Earth. Nobody can see the air, but everyone knows it’s there. Nobody can see the ocean currents, but everyone knows they’re there. A long time ago, however, people were like the animals from the forest. There were people around the world that thought things like germs and bacteria didn’t exist because they had never seen any (like the animals standing between the mirror and the painting). Somebody (like the cat) might have told them, but the people that didn’t believe in germs wouldn’t believe that person. They thought sicknesses were caused by things like bad smells and angry spirits and such (source: History Channel)

The animals’ attitudes in this story are actually very believable. Although the characters aren’t human, it’s in human nature to not believe in something until it’s been proven or they’ve seen/experienced it themselves. The leader of the animals, the elephant, went to the house after all the others and said that they were all liars and that there was no painting, and that there was nothing but “an elephant in the hole in the wall”. Here’s a question: How the heck did the elephant get in the house? Here’s a serious question: Why do people insist on not believing in things, when all they have to do is change their point of view? Mark Twain did an excellent job on this story because it shows how naïve people (or in this case animals) can be.